The Right Honourable The Lord Shinwell CH PC
Shinwell in the 1940s
Minister of Defence
In office 28 February 1950 – 26 October 1951
Prime Minister	Clement Attlee
Preceded by	A. V. Alexander
Succeeded by	Winston Churchill
Secretary of State for War
In office 7 October 1947 – 28 February 1950
Prime Minister	Clement Attlee
Preceded by	Frederick Bellenger
Succeeded by	John Strachey
Minister of Fuel and Power
In office 3 August 1945 – 7 October 1947
Prime Minister	Clement Attlee
Preceded by	Gwilym Lloyd George
Succeeded by	Hugh Gaitskell
Secretary for Mines
In office 5 June 1930 – 3 September 1931
Prime Minister	Ramsay MacDonald
Preceded by	Ben Turner
Succeeded by	Isaac Foot
In office 23 January 1924 – 11 November 1924
Prime Minister	Ramsay MacDonald
Preceded by	George Lane-Fox
Succeeded by	George Lane-Fox
Financial Secretary to the War Office
In office 11 June 1929 – 5 June 1930
Prime Minister	Ramsay MacDonald
Preceded by	Duff Cooper
Succeeded by	William Sanders
Parliamentary offices Member of theHouse of Lords Lord Temporal Life peerage 29 June 1970 – 8 May 1986 Member of Parliament forEasington (Seaham 1935–1950) In office 14 November 1935 – 29 May 1970 Preceded by Ramsay MacDonald Succeeded by Jack Dormand Member of Parliament forLinlithgowshire In office 4 April 1928 – 7 October 1931 Preceded by James Kidd Succeeded by Adrian Baillie In office 15 November 1922 – 9 October 1924 Preceded by James Kidd Succeeded by James Kidd
Personal details
Born	Emanuel Shinwell (1884-10-18)18 October 1884 Spitalfields, London, England
Died	8 May 1986(1986-05-08) (aged 101) London, England
Party	Labour
Spouses	Fanny Freeman ​ ​ (m. 1903; died 1954)​ Dinah Meyer ​ ​ (m. 1956; died 1971)​ Sarah Sturgo ​ ​ (m. 1972; died 1977)​
Children	4
Relatives	Luciana Berger (great-niece)

Emanuel Shinwell, Baron Shinwell,CH, PC (18 October 1884 – 8 May 1986) was a British politician who served as a government minister underRamsay MacDonald andClement Attlee. A member of theLabour Party, he served as aMember of Parliament (MP) for 40 years, representingLinlithgowshire,Seaham andEasington.

Born in theEast End of London to a large family ofJewish immigrants, Shinwell moved toGlasgow as a boy and left school at the age of eleven. He became atrade union organiser and one of the leading figures ofRed Clydeside. He was imprisoned in 1919 for his alleged involvement in thedisturbances in Glasgow in January of that year. He served as a Labour MP from1922 to1924, and from a by-election in 1928 until1931, and held junior office in the minority Labour Governments of 1924 and 1929–1931. He returned to the House of Commons in1935, defeating formerUK Prime MinisterRamsay MacDonald, who by that time had been expelled from the Labour Party. During the Second World War, he was a leading backbencher critic of the Coalition Government.

Shinwell is perhaps best remembered as theMinister of Fuel and Power in theAttlee ministry that nationalisedcoal mining in 1946. He was in charge of Britain's coal supply during theextremely harsh winter of January to March 1947, during which the supply system collapsed, leaving the United Kingdom to freeze and close down. He became unpopular with the public and was sacked in October 1947. He then served asSecretary of State for War, and then asMinister of Defence from 1950 to 1951. The high defence spending which he demanded, partly to pay for British involvement in theKorean War, was a major factor causing then-Chancellor of the ExchequerHugh Gaitskell to imposeNHS charges, prompting the resignation ofAneurin Bevan from the Cabinet.

Following Labour's defeat in1951, Shinwell continued to serve in the Shadow Cabinet in Opposition until he stepped down in 1955. Thereafter he was a senior backbencher until1970, by which time he was in his mid-eighties. That year he accepted a life peerage and was an active member of theHouse of Lords until shortly before his death, aged 101, in 1986.

Shinwell was born inSpitalfields, London, but his family moved toGlasgow, Scotland. His father was a PolishJew who had a small clothing shop, and his mother, a Dutch Jew, was a cook from London.^[1] He was the eldest of thirteen children.^[2]

He educated himself in a public library and at theKelvingrove Art Gallery. He enjoyed sport, particularly boxing, and he was the trainer of a local football team. He left school at age eleven to be apprenticed as a tailor, and began his working life as a machinist in a clothing workshop. In 1903, he became active in the Amalgamated Union of Clothiers' Operatives, and joined theGlasgow Trades Council in 1906 as a delegate of that union.^[2]

In May 1911, he was seconded to help organise the seamen of Glasgow at the request ofHavelock Wilson of theNational Sailors' and Firemen's Union (NSFU). He played a prominent role in the six-week Glasgow seamen'sstrike which began on 14 June and which was part of a nationwide strike. He subsequently became the secretary of the Glasgow branch of the NSFU. In August 1912, he participated in a revolt against the union, which resulted in the Glasgow branch becoming part of theSouthampton-basedBritish Seafarers' Union (BSU). He was the local secretary of the BSU until it became part of theAmalgamated Marine Workers' Union (AMWU) in 1922, after which he served as National Organiser of the new organisation.^[2]

In1918, he stood unsuccessfully forLinlithgowshire^[2] (alternative name West Lothian^[3]).

In 1919, he gained national notoriety through his involvement in theGlasgow 40 Hours' Movement. This movement culminated in clashes between police and protesters in Glasgow'sGeorge Square in January 1919, in which he was alleged to have been involved. He was afterwards tried for incitement to riot and was sentenced to five months' imprisonment inCalton Jail,Edinburgh.^[4][2]

AnIndependent Labour Party (ILP) member, he was elected asMember of Parliament (MP) forLinlithgowshire at the1922 general election.^[2]

In 1924 he wasSecretary for Mines (not a Cabinet-level post)^[5] in the First Labour Government. He lost his seat in1924, but was re-elected for Linlithgowshire at aby-election in 1928.^[2]

In the second Labour Government of 1929–31Ramsay MacDonald appointed himFinancial Secretary to the War Office (1929–30); Cowling says that MacDonald believed he had rescued Shinwell's ministerial career when no minister would take him. He then served again asSecretary for Mines from 1930 to 1931. At the time Shinwell was an admirer of MacDonald and tried to dissuade him from forming aNational Government in 1931. He again lost his seat at thegeneral election that year.^[2]

He returned to the Commons in1935 after defeating MacDonald forSeaham Harbour,County of Durham (later renamed Easington after boundary changes in the late 1940s).^[2]

He campaigned vigorously, along with left-wingers such asAneurin Bevan, for Britain to support thePopular Front government in Spain againstFranco in theSpanish Civil War. On 4 April 1938, he doggedly criticised the government's foreign policy during a heatedHouse of Commons debate. Eventually,Conservative MPRobert Bower became exasperated and shouted at him to "go back to Poland!".^[6] Shinwell took this to be ananti-semitic remark and struck Bower on the side of the head causing internal bleeding, a blood clot, and a burst left eardrum.^[7] Both men then apologized to each other.^[8]

In May 1940 Shinwell refused a position inWinston Churchill'sCoalition Government in theMinistry of Food.^[9] He thought the offer of the Food post a “bloody insult”.^[10] He became chairman of the Labour Party in 1942. During theSecond World War he was a vigorous but patriotic backbench critic of Churchill. He andEarl Winterton, another serial critic of the government, were known as "Arsenic and Old Lace".^[11]

He served inClement Attlee's Cabinet after the Labour victory in1945 as Minister of Fuel and Power, and in 1946 he presided over thenationalisation of the mining industry. He also negotiated a miners' charter with the NUM. He declared the middle class "not worth a tinker's cuss".^[2] His insistence on the open-cast mining of the park of theWentworth Woodhouse estate, to the doorsteps of the house, when the quality of the coal was poor, was viewed by its owners and the local mining community, which opposed it, as pure vindictiveness – an act of class warfare.^[12] In 1947-8 he was Chairman of the Labour Party.^[2]

In 1947, Britain experienced, in anexceptionally severe winter, a serious coal shortage. The supply system collapsed, leaving Britain to freeze and close down. Shinwell denied there were problems and refused to assume responsibility, blaming the climate, the railway system, or capitalism generally.^[13] Shinwell was widely criticised for his failure to avert this crisis. His earlier comment that "There will be no fuel crisis. I am Minister of Fuel and Power and I ought to know", was later included in the official handbook for Conservative Party members to use in speeches and leaflets.^[14]

In 1947 Shinwell presided over thenationalisation of electricity. In October 1947 he was sacked. He was bitterly resentful at being replaced byHugh Gaitskell, his former deputy and a public schoolboy. He was also attacked byJames Callaghan (then a junior minister) for his lack of zeal about further nationalisation.^[2]

Shinwell was demoted toSecretary of State for War (Minister for the Army, but no longer a full member of the Cabinet) a position which he held until 1950. He was a vigorous War Minister, who got on well with the Army and was seen as jingoistic.^[2]

In November 1947 a report fromMI5 alleged that Shinwell had passed secret information to a man named "Stanley", who had passed it on toZionistparamilitary group, theIrgun. Shinwell knew self-styled "contact man"Sidney Stanley, whom he had approached for help in finding employment for his son Ernie, and Stanley had obtained information on the disbandment of theTransjordan Frontier Force from some government source.^[15]

Shinwell's seat becameEasington at theFebruary 1950 election, after which he was promoted toMinister of Defence and became a full member of the Cabinet once more.Edmund Dell described him as "putty in the hands of the defence chiefs" and his promotion as "[a] ludicrous appointment. No failure was ever great enough to persuade Attlee to deny one of his cohorts new opportunities to do damage … Shinwell never forgave Gaitskell, whom he blamed for his disgrace." Gaitskell, promoted toChancellor of the Exchequer later in the year, recorded in his diary that Shinwell "never loses an opportunity of picking a quarrel with me, sometimes on the most ridiculous grounds".^[16]

His term of office saw theMalayan Emergency and the early stages ofKorean War, which began in June 1950 and to whichBritish troops were deployed.^[2] Shinwell was responsible for the rearmament programme which precipitated the resignation ofAneurin Bevan from the Cabinet in the spring of 1951, although Gaitskell actually gave him less defence spending than he wanted.^[16] In the summer of 1951 the Cabinet blocked him from sending British troops toAbadan when theoil refineries were nationalised by the Iranian government.^[2]

Shinwell was by now seen as being on the right of the Labour Party. At the Labour Party Conference at Scarborough that autumn, he lost his place as an elected constituency representative on the Labour Party National Executive Committee (NEC), the members of which were increasingly elected by Bevanites in the constituency parties. Labour lost thegeneral election a month later.^[17][18]

Shinwell stepped down from the Shadow Cabinet (which at that time was elected by Labour MPs when the party was in opposition) in 1955. That year he published a volume of memoirs,Conflict Without Malice.^[2] By the early 1960s he had changed his mind about nuclear weapons and opposed the deployment of US nuclear submarines to Holy Loch.^[2]

Shinwell did not resume ministerial office when Labour returned to power in October 1964, but instead the new Prime MinisterHarold Wilson appointed him Chairman of theParliamentary Labour Party, and during the 1964-6 Parliament he worked hard to drum up backbench support for the government, which had a very narrow majority.^[2] He was appointed to theOrder of the Companions of Honour in the1965 Birthday Honours.^[19] He was vehemently opposed to Wilson's attempt to enter the EEC in 1966, and resigned as Chairman of the Labour Party in 1967.^[2]

He got on well both with Field MarshalBernard Montgomery and with the journalist SirJohn Junor.^[2]

Shinwell was created alife peer asBaron Shinwell, ofEasington in theCounty of Durham, on 29 June 1970.^[20][21] He later became chair of the All-Party Lords Defence Study Group. In 1973 he published another volume of memoirs,I've Lived through It All. He voted against the Labour Government in 1976. He resigned the Labour Party whip in 1982 in protest at left wing militancy.^[2]

In October 1984 Shinwell celebrated his hundredth birthday against the backdrop of theminers' strike.^[2] He continued to be active in theHouse of Lords until shortly before his death.^[22] He became the longest-livedpeer on 26 March 1986, dying a little over a month later on 8 May, aged 101. He held the record for the second longest-lived British MP (afterTheodore Cooke Taylor) until overtaken byBert Hazell in November 2008.^[2] He is one of nine former UK MPs to have become a centenarian.

Shinwell's estate was valued for probate at £271,509 (around £800,000 at 2023 prices).^[2][23]

Shinwell was married three times: from 1903 to 1954 to Fay (Fanny) Freeman, by whom he had two sons and a daughter, from 1956 to 1971 to Dinah Meyer, who wasDanish, and from 1972 to 1977 to Sarah Sturgo.^[2] He outlived all three of his wives.^[24] Shinwell's great-niece is the former MP forLiverpool Wavertree,Luciana Berger.^[25]

Shinwell sat for sculptorAlan Thornhill for a portrait^[26] in clay. The correspondence file relating to the Shinwell portrait bust is held as part of the Thornhill Papers (2006:56) in the archive^[27] of theHenry Moore Foundation'sHenry Moore Institute inLeeds and the terracotta remains in the collection of the artist. A bronze (accession number S.309) was purchased for the Collection of Glasgow City Art Gallery in 1973.^[28]

Shinwell was a lifelong smoker, having smokedtobacco from the age of 13; on many occasions he was seen smoking with his pipe. Shinwell was also an enthusiastic drinker ofspirits, particularlywhisky.^[29]

Shinwell wrote three volumes of autobiography:

• Conflict Without Malice (1955)
• I've Lived Through it All (1973)
• Lead With the Left (1981)

Shinwell wrote"When The Men Come Home" (1944)

Biography:

• Slowe, Peter, "Manny Shinwell" Pluto Press (1993), foreword by Harold Wilson.ISBN 9780745307374

Scholarly studies:

• Robertson Alex J..The Bleak Midwinter 1947 (Manchester University Press. 1987). pp. x, 207

Book used for citations:

• Campbell, John (1987).Nye Bevan and the Mirage of British Socialism. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.ISBN 978-0-297-78998-7.
• Dell, Edmund (1997).The Chancellors: A History of the Chancellors of the Exchequer, 1945-90. London: HarperCollins.ISBN 978-0-006-38418-2.
• Matthew (editor), Colin (2004).Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 50. Oxford: Oxford University Press.ISBN 978-0198614111.{{cite book}}:|last= has generic name (help), essay on Shinwell written by Kenneth O. Morgan
• Olson, Lynn (2007).Troublesome Young Men: The Rebels Who Brought Churchill to Power and Helped Save England. Farrar Straus & Giroux.ISBN 9780374179540.
• Rees-Mogg, William (2011).Memoirs. HarperPress.ISBN 978-0-002-57183-8.

• Catalogue of the Shinwell papers held at LSE Archives

• Hansard 1803–2005:contributions in Parliament by Lord Shinwell
• Newspaper clippings about Manny Shinwell in the20th Century Press Archives of theZBW

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